by Lora Leigh
She hadn’t considered failing. And in not considering it, had not thought of the harm she could cause if she did fail.
She had hurt not just him, but her father as well. Two men who had forged a bond in pain years before were now no longer friends. The two men she loved most in the world had been irreversibly hurt by her foolish actions.
And she was alone.
A dry sob tore at her chest at the thought. She now slept alone, she wept alone.
Drawing in a deep breath she turned back to her bedroom, considering it as she had been for most of the morning. Her mother had suggested refurnishing her suite, changing it. But perhaps it was time for more.
She had lived with her parents all her life. After finishing school, she had come home, unwilling to commit herself to college at that time, eager to be the adult she thought she was. She had built her life around her dreams of Ian, and now that life no longer existed. It was time to build a new one.
It wouldn’t be as fine as the one she felt she could have had with him. The laughter and heat, the sharing. She could have grown in his arms, become anything she wanted to become and still be Ian’s woman. She had known that. She had thought there was time to make the decision of where her education would continue, and how she would fill her life.
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Perhaps, rather than refurnishing, it was time she left instead. Time she forced herself to step away from the protection and the love her parents’ home afforded her, and forge her own life.
She had a multitude of things she enjoyed. Decorating, training the horses on her father’s estate for the competitions they were often entered in, she even liked the charity work she often helped her mother with. She could turn any of those into a career.
She especially enjoyed…Ian.
It seemed there were more tears after all. Another slid down her cheek as the loss threatened again to overwhelm her.
“No more tears,” she chastised herself severely as she moved to her closet. “Change instead.”
Change required energy. It forced one to stay busy, to push all other things to the rear and focus solely on what must be done. It was the only answer to the life she now faced. She had accepted, at least for now, until she could cope with losing everything she had believed would be hers, she would be alone. But that didn’t mean she had to wallow in the pain, nor did she have to let it worsen.
She pulled a chic dark gray dress from the closet along with matching pumps. She would need her own apartment, a place of her own. Then she would enroll in college as her father kept encouraging her to do. She would slowly rebuild her life. It wasn’t her dream, but it would do.
As she laid the dress over the bed, a soft knock at her bedroom door interrupted her thoughts.
“Come in,” she called out, watching warily as the door opened and her father stepped into the room.
He was a handsome man for his age. Still well-developed, his sandy blond hair as thick as ever, his gray eyes turbulent. He had always been her strength as she grew up.
Ready to protect her, to guide her, or merely to laugh with her. She had always believed there could never be a man more perfect than he was. Except Ian.
“Going out?” He glanced at the dress, moving further into her room as she watched him, aware that letting her go would be difficult for him.
He had so loved and spoiled her, all her life. He had taught her many of her greatest accomplishments and had cheered her on ahead of everyone else. He had taught her confidence, taught her strength. He had helped her find the best of what she was inside herself.
“Yes.” She glanced at the dress, then back to him. “I’m going apartment hunting.” She didn’t have to imagine how it would affect him. His eyes instantly darkened with an instinctive protest as his big body tensed. He couldn’t know how hard it was for her as well, though. Leaving the only security she had known besides Ian’s arms, would be one of the hardest things she had ever done.
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“A rather sudden decision, isn’t it?” he growled. “No one has asked you to move out.”
“I know, Daddy.” She smiled softly. “It’s just time, I think. Perhaps it’s time for college as well.” She shrugged restlessly. “I can’t spend my days just drifting. And after so many parties, it becomes rather boring. I…I need something more…” She glanced away from him, unwilling to look as she hurt him further.
“You can live here and go to college,” he suggested.
She could, but living with her parents wouldn’t accomplish the growth she needed.
She needed to learn how to dream dreams that didn’t include Ian. She couldn’t do that here, where all her dreams of him had begun.
“No.” She breathed in deeply. “I need to be on my own, I think. It’s time I grow up.”
How a woman who had indulged sexually as she had with Ian could utter those words, she wasn’t certain. She felt ages old. And yet, as uncertain now as she had felt during the time her parents had been apart.
He lowered his head, pushing his hands forcefully into the pockets of his slacks as he nodded slowly.
“It’s hard, letting you go.” He cleared his throat, staring around the room as he blinked several times. Hard. “Hard to let go of the years I lost and remember you’re not a baby anymore.”
Courtney bit her lip and found there were many more tears. Tears she would shed later rather than now.
“You taught me to follow my heart, Father,” she whispered huskily. “That’s what I must do.”
He nodded. Cleared his throat again.
“Ian called,” he announced as his head rose.
She flinched. She couldn’t help it. The pain built inside her until she was certain it would take her to her knees. He hadn’t called her. Not even once.
“Is he doing well?” Any news of him was better than nothing.
She worried about him, she admitted. Though she doubted he needed her concern.
She was terrified she had added more pain, more guilt to his already haunted eyes. The thought of that was nearly as painful as losing him.
“Yeah.” He nodded firmly. “He sounded tired though.” She stared back at him calmly, despite the agony resonating through her.
“You’re talking to him again then?”
“Yeah.” He nodded again. “I was…worried about him.” He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably.
She had worried as well. She talked to Khalid often, though he rarely had any real news of Ian.
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“I’m glad he’s well.” She fought the trembling of her lips as she smiled back at him.
“Now, I really need to get dressed…”
“He asked about you.” His eyes met hers, a question forming there.
Pain curled through her chest, making it difficult to breathe.
“I hope you told him I was well?” Her smile wobbled as she met his gaze.
“I told him he fucking broke my daughter’s heart,” he finally snapped. “What the hell was I supposed to tell him, Courtney?”
“That I am well,” she answered, her voice thickening with more tears. “He needs know nothing more, Father. I am alive. I am healthy. I am not suicidal. Nothing more should concern him.”
He grimaced in disgust.
“You haunt this house like a ghost,” he growled. “Even Sebastian is worried. The bastard wasn’t supposed to break your heart.”
“For pity’s sake, what do you think I’m going to do?” she yelled back at him. “Did you have Ian thinking I’m going to kill myself because I couldn’t gain his heart? What would make you believe I’m so weak?”
“I did no such thing,” he informed her fiercely. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell him what a sorry bastard he is.”
“Argh. You are as insane as any man I have ever met. It is no wonder you and Ian are so close.” She threw her hand
s up in surrender. “First, you do not want him to be with me, now you would chastise him for not being with me. Make up your mind, Father, before you make yourself crazy.”
He grunted at that. “He didn’t have to hurt you.”
“He did not hurt me.” It was no more than the same argument they had fought for the past month. “I hurt me, Father, don’t you understand that? I was wrong to push him…” The tears came again. “Would you just stop speaking of him? Please…”
“Why, so you can forget me?”
She stared in shock as Ian stepped into the room.
Her eyes widened as heat began to fill her body, racing through her bloodstream, chasing away the chill that held her in stasis for so many weeks.
He looked horrible. His face was haggard, lined with weariness, his deep blue eyes filled with shadows.
Her head whipped around to her father, staring at him in mute shock.
“He called from the limo.” He shrugged. “He wanted to see you. It’s your life, Courtney,” he finally sighed, his gray eyes concerned, finally filled with acceptance. “I can’t live it for you, and to be honest, I’d just fuck it up further if you let me.” He turned to Ian then. “I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready to talk.” He turned and left the room, leaving her alone then with the man who had haunted her for most of her life.
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Why was he here though? Did he worry that she would somehow meet the same end that Melissa had?
“If he has led you to believe I would hurt myself, then he is playing a very cruel game with you,” she bit out fiercely. “You must remember I inherited my scheming heart somewhere. It was obviously him. You know how he gets when he’s angry, Ian.
He’ll let you believe whatever you like.”
She couldn’t believe he was here. She stared at him, eating him with her gaze, caressing him with her eyes as she longed to with her hands. How tall and strong he looked. His sun-darkened flesh, the thick black hair, his wicked blue eyes. He stood before her dressed in low-slung jeans and a white silk shirt. Boots covered his feet, giving him a rakish stance. And between his thighs… He still lusted for her. His cock was hard, pressing against the material in a bid to be free.
Her body responded to that knowledge, her breasts swelling, her nipples growing hard and sensitized as he continued to watch her.
“I know how Dane is.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he watched her solemnly. “You disappoint me though.”
“Me?” Her brows snapped into a frown as his words finally sank into her head.
“How could I have disappointed you? I left. What more could you wish?”
“Did I ask you to leave?” He arched his brow questioningly. “I don’t recall asking you to do anything of the sort. You drove me crazy for weeks, finally got what you wanted and then you just up and left.”
She blinked back at him, her hands waving nervously.
“I had caused you such trouble…”
“No more than I expected.” He grunted. “Don’t you think I knew your father was a little smarter than you were giving him credit for? I knew he would get suspicious. You were the one who thought you had him fooled.”
She flushed at the reminder.
“I didn’t want to make things worse…” Her throat tightened with regret. Why hadn’t he understood that? And why wait a month to berate her for it?
He stepped further into the room, bringing with him the unique scent that she had always loved about him.
“You made things much worse,” he growled then. “You left without saying goodbye. That hurt my feelings, Courtney.”
She shook her head, watching him in confusion.
“How?” She frowned trying to figure that one out.
“I was furious with you.” He stopped in front of her, staring down at her, his expression lightening as he saw whatever it was he was searching for within her gaze.
“I am still furious with you. Which means, I may well have to punish you severely.
Later…” She gasped when he touched her, his arms going around her, one hand tangling in her hair to draw her head back. “Much later…” 144
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His lips came down on hers forcefully, his tongue spearing between them as they parted in surprise and conquering any protest she would have made. Emotion hit her like a tidal wave, swamping her in pleasure, in an arousal that tore brutally through her system.
This would not do at all.
Reality slammed forcefully into her head, her heart as she jerked back from him, tearing herself from his arms as she stared back at him, fury erupting inside her.
“Your feelings were hurt?” Incredulity swept through her. “How dare you stand before me proclaiming such a thing? How dare you in all your fucking male superiority dare to say such a thing to me?”
Weeks. Weeks of agony, of sleepless nights tore through her. The days of pacing the floors fighting to understand how she could have possibly been wrong, how her heart, which had always led her right, had fucked up so horribly, and his feelings were hurt?
“Courtney…” His voice hardened.
“Do not ‘Courtney’ me,” she snarled, pointing her finger furiously at his chest, trembling with her fury. “I stood before you, my soul bare and bleeding and not once…” She held up her finger imperiously. “Not even one time, neither by look nor by word did you even hint that you should feel any a single tender emotion for me. That you gave one whit for the agony resounding through my soul.”
“You got your sense of drama from your mother,” he growled, frowning back at her as he propped his hands on his hips. “Let me know when you’re finished chastising me and we’ll talk.”
“Finished chastising you?” She smiled. It was all teeth. “Oh dearest Ian, I have finished chastising you. You may return to the cold comfort of your Club, and the even colder depth of your bed. Alone.”
She couldn’t believe it. Could not believe his daring, his nerve.
His eyes flared with sudden anger.
“You will listen to me,” he snapped. “Don’t push me, baby. I’ve been pushed far enough.”
“I have yet to push you, Ian Sinclair,” she yelled, furious, as she stomped to the door. “I have yet to show you what an arrogant all-knowing prick I now believe you are. You may leave.” She flung the door open, fury pulsing through her.
She hadn’t come in a month. No orgasms. No pleasure. No sexual pain.
She had cried until her pillows were drenched.
She had made her mother cry. She had brought tears to her father’s eyes.
She had suffered. For what? So he could arrive in her home, in her bedroom and say his feelings were hurt?
Phfft! on his feelings.
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“You damned little wildcat.” He stomped to her, jerking the door out of her grip and slamming it closed before jerking her back in his arms, restraining her hands behind her back and drowning her furious scream with his lips.
Lips that ate at hers. Lips that slanted across hers as his tongue forced its way into her mouth, licking at her, devouring her.
She hadn’t had an orgasm in a month.
She had drenched her pillows in tears.
And he was here now. Kissing her as though he could not taste her enough, his cock pressing hard and demanding against her stomach as he arched her into his embrace. He consumed her senses, forging past the fury to the soul-deep hunger for his touch, the satisfaction only he could bring.
She needed more. She had to be closer, to draw the heat of him into her, to hold this small, unexpected touch forever to her heart.
“You left me, Courtney…” he growled against her lips, nipping at them erotically as her eyes opened drowsily to stare back at him. “You can’t leave me, baby. Never again. Not ever again.”
She would have spoken, she would have questioned the surprising declarat
ion if his hands didn’t seem to be everywhere at once, divesting her of her clothing, stroking her, sending her senses spinning with his touch.
She was weak, and she knew it. He might not love her, but before she had to walk away from him forever she could touch him once last time, take him into her body and remember forever how perfect it was.
You can’t leave me… Never again… Not ever again…
The words vibrated through her mind.
“No. Wait…” She turned her head from him, trembling, pleasure and pain vibrating through her body. Pleasure from his touch. The pain of losing him. “Ian… Oh God, yes…”
His lips covered a hard, up-thrust nipple heatedly, drawing on it, sucking it deep into his mouth as his teeth rasped against it and his hands pushed the loose pants from her hips.
She was lost then. Nothing mattered but his touch, his hand lifting her to the bed as he followed her down, his amazing dexterity as he laved her nipple and quickly stripped the clothes from his own body.
Finally, he was naked. Hot and hard, his body tense and ready as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight as his lips moved once again to hers. The kiss opened her soul. Pleasure flooded every cell of her body, every corner of her spirit as his hands cupped each side of her face, holding her still as his head lifted.
Her breath caught at what she saw in his gaze. Emotion, bright, intense, adoring emotion.
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“I love you, Courtney,” he whispered, his expression twisting painfully as he watched her. “I didn’t know how much I could love until you were gone. Until your laughter no longer filled my home, your wicked high jinks no longer made me crazy.
Until I stood in that damned club and knew, without you by side, my life was as empty as my bed was without you in it. I didn’t know what love was, until I saw my refusal to admit it drown all the sweet innocence in your eyes. I love you.” She stared back at him, certain she couldn’t be hearing the words that had her heart beating in wonder, her soul filling with warmth, just as he was slowly filling her aching, once empty pussy.
She gasped, arching to him as she felt his cock working inside her. Slowly. So slowly as she moaned, needing more.